Investment & Savings Advice
Investing can offer you a good opportunity of growing your money over the longer term. A long-term approach to investing is generally accepted as being likely to provide the most benefit. Whether you start paying in to a personal pension, invest in an ISA or invest on behalf of your children, the earlier you start the better.
Both saving and investing can be used to meet both short and long-term financial needs. Short-term needs may include saving for a car or a holiday, whereas long term-investment needs could be saving for retirement, school fees or providing capital for children as they grow up.
A financial adviser can offer expertise and objectivity when choosing to save and invest wisely; which can greatly effect the performance of your investments. It's always good to take the effort to ensure you are as informed as possible.
Investment Portfolio
The various assets owned by an investor are called a portfolio. As a general rule, spreading your money between the different types of asset classes helps lower the risk of your overall portfolio underperforming.
Planning investments takes time. This is where we can help, both in advising you on your investment needs and your portfolio.
Please contact us so that we may assist you in determining an investment strategy most appropriate for your needs and circumstances.
The value of investments and the income they produce can fall as well as rise. You may get back less than you invested.
Tax treatment depends on the individual circumstances of each client and may be subject to change in future.
Lifetime ISA accounts
Since April 2017, any adult under 40 can open a new Lifetime ISA. Up to £4,000 can be saved each year and savers will receive a 25% bonus from the government on this money.
Money put into this account can be saved until you are over 60 and used as retirement income, or you can transfer it to help buy your first home.
Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs)
Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs)
You can save tax-free with Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs).
In the 2024 to 2025 tax year, the maximum you can save in ISAs is £20,000
There are a number of different types of ISAs, shown below:
- Cash ISAs
- Stocks and Shares ISAs
- Innovative Finance ISAs
- Lifetime ISAs
Each tax year you can put money into one of each of the above kinds of ISAs if required. The tax year runs from 6 April to 5 April.
You can save up to £20,000 in one type of account or split the allowance across 2 or 3 types (be aware that the Lifetime ISA has a lower subscription limit within the overall £20,000 limit).
Junior ISA or “JISA” (under 18s)
This is a separate ISA for under 18s who don't hold a Child Trust Fund (CTF). A child with a CTF may choose a JISA instead if they first transfer their CTF funds to a JISA and close the CTF. The maximum subscription in 2024/25 is £9,000 (CTF or JISA).
Each tax year you can put money into one of each kind of ISA. The tax year runs from 6 April to 5 April.
You can save up to £20,000 in one type of account or split the allowance across 2 or 3 types.
Unit Trusts
A unit trust reduces your risk of investing in the stock market by pooling your savings with thousands of others, and then spreading the money across a wide range of shares or other types of investment.
OEICs
Open Ended Investment Companies were introduced into the UK in 1997, from Europe. Open-ended means shares in the fund will be created as investors invest and cancelled as they cash in.
OEIC's quote a single price, and a levy which shows the costs of buying/selling.
Investment Trusts
Investment Trusts are companies that buy and sell shares in other companies. When you invest in an investment trust company, you become a shareholder of that company. Your shares will rise and fall in value according to supply and demand for the shares.
Unlike a Unit Trust and an OEIC, the number of shares within an investment trust is limited (there are only so many that can be bought and sold at any time). This means that as well as being influenced by the value of the assets held by the Investment Trust, their price is determined by investor demand, rising with popularity, and vice versa. This means that a share in an Investment Trust can be more expensive than the total costs of the relative assets in the investment: this is called trading “at a premium”. If the reverse is true, it is said to be trading “at a discount”. This adds another layer of risk for investors in an Investment Trust, but can also create buying opportunities.